Tardelle, or Struffoli

Back when Christmas was a
season of joy rather than an extended period of coping and anxiety,
i.e. when I was a child, we would spend the holiday at my
grandparents’ in south Jersey. My folks would stay for dinner and
we slept over. Every year the kids would argue that we should open
our presents after the meal rather than the next morning. My father
always insisted that we should wait for Christmas Day, but he was
consistently overruled by my grandmother, a remarkable woman who
spoiled her grandkids rotten. It’s hard to even imagine now, given
how emotions harden and become more transactional and transitory as
you age, but I’m pretty sure I loved my grandmother as much as any
little boy has ever loved his grandmother. And there was never a
question that she loved me back.

One of the main ways she expressed these emotions, as is the
case with all Italian grandmothers, was through food. She was a terrific cook, and barely a minute
went by between meals without her foisting cake or pudding or
snacks or something else she had just whipped up on us. (My
somewhat robust physique these days may owe a debt to those
childhood binges.) My favorite thing of all was something she only
made once a year: tardelle. (The spelling on this is from
the instructions she wrote out for my mother, so I cannot vouch for
its accuracy; she pronounced it “TAR-deel.” It is also known as
struffoli.)

Italians are not famous for their desserts, but I could never
get enough of this. It was one more thing that made Christmas seem
special. Here’s her recipe.

Place salted flour in bowl. Make a well. Beat eggs and pour into
flour. Mix and then knead until it’s like noodle dough. [Here
she writes, "I'm sure you know noodle dough." You may not, so just
work it until it's somewhat smooth and elastic.]

Roll a piece of dough into a long strip onto a floured board,
round like a pencil, and cut into small pieces.

Fry a few pieces in hot oil ’til golden. Repeat with remaining
pieces. Drain on toweling. [I love that she used the word
"toweling."]

Heat honey [in a separate pan] with grated orange peel.
Stack the tardelle in a pyramid on a large plate. Drizzle warm
honey over tardelle. (Work quickly.) Add sprinkles.
[Alternately, you can coat the tardelle in the saucepan you use
to warm the honey, but my grandmother always though it made them
harder to stack later, and the presentation is important.]

And that’s it. This is slightly inexact, but if you’ve ever
fried anything before you shouldn’t have too many problems with it.
The recipe is going to make more tardelle than anyone can
eat in one sitting, but that’s okay. They’re best when they’re
fresh, but they’re still great over the next couple of days, even
when they start going a little stale. They will taste like
unconditional love.